Three Strange Angels

by Kalpakian, Laura;

  His wandering brought him to the swimming pool where underwater lights twinkled in the depths. He stopped and watched, momentarily mesmerized. Had Francis Carson been drunkenly enchanted by these rippling lights, somehow mistaking this pool for the beach at Broadstairs, and thrown himself in? Had he thought, oh, nothing like a little dip to sober one up? Or had he simply stumbled, fallen in, drunk as he was? Too drunk to swim to the shallow end? To swim to one edge or another? Would Frank have cried out, and was there no one to hear? Quentin thought of Rupert Brooke and wondered if the Garden of Allah qualified as some corner of a foreign field that would be forever England. The lights in the pool went out and the water went dark.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  GUTTING THE FISH

  Gigi collected him at ten as promised, knocking lightly, letting herself in without waiting for him to open the door. ‘Ta-ta! It’s me,’ she called, as he came out of the bedroom rubbing his fresh-shaven jaw. She wore a dress of bright-red flowers on a white background with a tightly cinched waist, a full skirt, long sleeves. Her legs were bare, her feet thrust into high-heeled sandals. She was peeling driving gloves from her hands. ‘Why are you still in those awful clothes? Frank’s fit you fine. Well, not fine, but all right.’

  ‘I am not wearing his clothes, and there’s an end to it, Gigi.’

  ‘Look, I’m one of the few people who actually tells the truth, and the truth is, I personally cannot be seen driving around town in my smart little British sports car with you looking like a funeral director.’

  He righted his tie in the mirror. ‘I am here on account of a death.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I am British. I could go along with your car.’

  ‘Nice try.’

  ‘I am who I am, Gigi. Can’t you understand that?’

  ‘No, I can’t. I like people who are what they want to be. By the way, we have the whole day today. Aaron called, and said there was some kind of snafu, and I should bring you by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Snafu. Situation normal, all fucked up. Oh, don’t look so shocked. He’ll have everything you need tomorrow. We’ll go then.’

  ‘What do I need? What exactly is going to happen? Will I need forms to collect Frank’s body? Will I—’

  ‘Look, talk about the dead with Aaron tomorrow. We can do something fun today. Go somewhere. Let’s walk to Schwab’s for breakfast. I’m famished. You?’

  The dappled sunlight, the effulgent green, the slashes and splashes of colour all seemed foreign, as foreign as expressions like ‘all fucked up’, or everyone referred to as baby, or Gigi’s breezy dismissals of anything that displeased her. But then, he thought, in the last three weeks, three women – Claire, Louisa and Gigi – had all left him shocked and amused, provoked and pleased. He was equally shocked when they came to Schwab’s.

  ‘But this says pharmacy,’ he protested. ‘Isn’t that like a chemist?’

  ‘There’s a lunch counter. Grand Central, baby. Everyone comes here because everyone else is here. It’s crawling with people.’

  Crawling was the correct description, he thought, as they walked into a smoke-laden haze, loud voices, phones ringing in the booths, people jumping up, jostling. Gigi swept in as though she expected to be the centre of attention, and indeed all sorts of people came up to her while they waited for seats, everyone making small talk, offering comments, inquiries that somehow seemed to involve or invoke Roy Rosenbaum. These people, most of them young, regarded Quentin with undisguised curiosity. On hearing that he was Frank Carson’s literary agent, come from London to escort the body, conversations were cut short. In this animated place, no one discussed the dead.

  Two stools at the counter opened up, and Gigi dashed and held them both. ‘Let me do the ordering,’ she said, snatching the greasy menu from Quentin’s hand. ‘I’m happy to say there’s none of those nasty little fish the English eat for breakfast. They stay on your breath all day long!’

  ‘They do?’

  ‘Take my word for it. Remember Lord Eddie? His breath was positively putrid with those little fish.’ Gigi ordered them two coffees, eggs, over easy, bacon, hashbrowns, and a new bottle of ketchup. She doused the eggs and potatoes on her plate with ketchup. She chatted all through breakfast about her date last night, dancing at the Cocoanut Grove with Walter, tanned and handsome, but otherwise dull. ‘But what do I care? He’s good at tennis and dancing, and that’s why I date him. However, I don’t sleep with him. I’m not sleeping with anyone at the moment. Interested?’

  ‘I am a married man.’

  Gigi burst out laughing. ‘You are so ka-razy-serious! Want a chocolate soda for dessert?’ Quentin, bravely trying ketchup on his eggs, said he wasn’t sure what a chocolate soda was, and breakfast did not have dessert. Gigi was undeterred. When it came, he sipped it and gave himself up to the pleasures of her voice and her stories, to ogling the noisy throngs and enjoying the eccentric energy all around him.

  ‘Hello, Brat,’ said a young man, tapping Gigi’s shoulder.

  ‘You know I hate being called Brat.’

  ‘Gigi, then. I hear they’re going back to work on Some of These Days today.’

  ‘What’s it to you, Don? Meet Quentin Castle, Don. Don calls himself a screenwriter, but he’s really a first-class hack.’

  ‘I like the first-class part.’ Don tipped his hat, and then turned back to Gigi. ‘They’ll need a rewrite. They might need me. You know, someone who can actually write.’

  ‘Quentin is Frank Carson’s literary agent, Don. He’s come all the way from England to take Frank’s remains back to England. The least you could do is offer your condolences.’

  ‘My condolences.’

  ‘Frank Carson was a real writer. He wrote novels.’

  ‘Yeah, well, from what I’ve heard, Some of These Days is a fucking disaster. Sorry, mister. They’re three weeks into shooting, and the script is still a mess. I could fix that. You could put in a good word for me with—’

  ‘Tell it to the marines, Don.’ Gigi picked up the tab, nodded to Quentin, slid off the stool, sailed past Don and headed towards the door.

  As they meandered back to the Garden of Allah, she told a lively story, strewn with expletives, about Don. ‘He’d do anything to get back in Roy’s good graces, but he screwed the wrong girl. I refer, of course, to myself.’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘Yes, Don was two-timing me, the bastard. Probably three-timing.’

  ‘So you told Roy?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. I simply told Roy I thought the last picture Don worked on was putrid. Writers are a dime a dozen. Roy’ll never hire him. Honestly, though, Don’s not that bad of a writer. Not great, but better than some. He’s finished now.’

  ‘Because of you, what you said to Roy?’

  ‘Yes. Go ahead, say it. I’m a hard-hearted, small-minded bitch.’

  ‘I try not to say such things.’ Then lest he seem even more judgemental, he asked, ‘How long did your affair with Don go on?’

  ‘Affair! You make it sound like Rhett and Scarlett. I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘A couple of months maybe. It was a long time ago, two years.’

  ‘But you must have been a child!’

  ‘I’m almost twenty-two.’

  ‘You seem younger.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Almost twenty-five.’

  ‘You seem older.’

  ‘I have a profession. I’m married. You’re still looking.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘A husband?’

  ‘Not on your life.’

  ‘Looking for a career, then. You’re a very bright girl.’

  ‘I’m not very bright. And what kind of career could I possibly have? I can’t even type, and I haven’t any talents, and it doesn’t matter anyway. They won’t let me work.’

  ‘Maybe you should be a literary agent. You read, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m easily bored.’

 
; ‘That might be useful. You’re certainly very persuasive. Otherwise I wouldn’t have worn Frank Carson’s clothes last night.’

  ‘Did that go well?’

  ‘Well, I hardly know. I’m not sure I can judge. They all seemed to be having a sort of joke at my expense. They all laughed at any rate. Something about standing on one’s head.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing, Quentin, and it wasn’t at your expense. It’s an ancient joke, and Roy thinks it’s funny, so everyone else does too. They laugh when Roy laughs.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It goes like this. This sinner dies and goes to hell. The devil meets him there and says, “OK, you have your choice of three rooms in hell, but whatever room you choose, you have to stay there forever and ever, for eternity.” So the devil takes him to the first room and there are all these sinners in the fire and there’s lots of little devils poking at them with hot irons and there’s flames everywhere and lots of screaming. The sinner says to the devil, “Hmmm, that doesn’t look too good, show me the next room.” So the devil takes him to the next room and there are all these people and they’re having hot oil poured over them and they’re screaming and, well, you get the picture. The guy says to the devil, “I don’t think so. Show me the next room.” So the devil takes him to this room where there are all these people and they’re standing there, drinking coffee, knee-deep in shit.’ Gigi’s eyes widened with practised alarm. ‘And the guy thinks to himself, well, this isn’t too bad, and at least it’s better than the other two choices. So he says, “OK, Devil, I’ll take this room.” He wades on in, and no sooner has a cup of coffee been put in his hand than the devil says, “OK, coffee break’s over, everybody back on their heads.”’ She burst out laughing. ‘So it’s sort of an everyday saying now. Everyone back on their heads when you have to go to work. Hey!’ Her face lit. ‘They’re starting back to work on Some of These Days today! Hey, let’s go and watch. If we stay out from underfoot, no one will even notice we’re there. Let’s go!’

  Quentin found her driving less knuckle-gnawing scary than he had yesterday. He wondered if this reflected on Gigi or on himself. ‘There was something else they said last night that troubles me. Perhaps you can explain.’

  ‘I’m here to help.’

  ‘Your sister asked Roy why he tolerated Frank’s bad behaviour, and he said Frank wasn’t like everyone else.’

  ‘The Lotus is not my sister.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Fine. OK. Just remember that.’ She drove a while in silence, which, feeling her rebuke, he did not try to break. After passing a fat-fendered Chrysler, she went on, ‘Probably Roy meant that Frank didn’t need anyone, not Roy or Aaron or Regent or any of them, to make him a writer. He was already what – who – he wanted to be. There’s almost no one in this town who can say that. Everyone here in Hollywood, even the best and most beautiful, inwardly they cower and fret and need to be loved. But Frank was never like that. He was confident in his own talent. He thought his novel was holy writ, and when they started to screw around with his story, he got really mad, like he blew a gasket! And he didn’t give a good goddamn who knew it.’

  ‘He had genius,’ said Quentin, surprising himself.

  ‘Well, maybe he did, but when you work for Regent Films, you follow Roy’s rules, and Frank broke them, and I don’t mean his drinking, or the drugs—’

  ‘Drugs!’

  ‘Oh, reefer and a little cocaine, nothing to speak of. No, Frank was already out of control, and then he took up with Linda, and no one could touch him, even Aaron couldn’t rein him in. That doesn’t happen on one of Roy’s pictures.’

  ‘You make Roy sound like God.’

  ‘No, God’s not in it for the applause or the power or the money. Roy is. Really, he’s more like a master chef. You know, those men who stride through the great kitchens of Europe, making all the decisions, their white clothes absolutely unspotted while all the other people slice and chop and stir and boil and gut the fish and slice the onions, and weep and bleed and dump the garbage, and finally when the beautiful meal goes out into the restaurant, who gets the credit? I mean, does anyone ever say, “My compliments to the poor schmuck who beat the egg whites till his arm fell off, and please, pass my compliments on to the guy nursing a third-degree burn on his right hand.”’

  ‘How do you know so much about kitchens?’

  ‘I attended the Cordon Bleu in Paris last summer. Yet one more thing I wasn’t any good at.’ She leaned on the horn and passed a delivery truck.

  Perhaps she had failed at the Cordon Bleu, but Gigi Fischer had many enviable skills which she put into action when the MG pulled up to the broad, impressive gates at Regent Studios. She breezed her way past the guard with little more than a baleful stare and the words Roy Rosenbaum. She asked where they were filming Some of These Days, and tootled off with a wave of her hand, though the guard called after her to get a pass.

  They drove along avenues flanked on either side by vast buildings that reminded Quentin of airplane hangars. Assorted cranes and lights and trucks hauling lumber or whole trees were parked on the sides, and people pushing racks and riding motor scooters and what looked like little milk floats zigzagged among them. The MG got stuck behind a huge truck towing a log cabin on wheels, and the driver of that remained impervious to her shouts, or her laying on the horn. ‘If that driver knew Roy is my step-father, he would pull aside, get out of the truck, lie down on the street, and let me drive over him.’

  Finally she parked near another airplane hangar blindingly white like everything else. Quentin got out and followed her through a small door. They slid into a vast, dim space, the ceiling barely visible; an eerie gloom rose to heights filled with cranes and catwalks where men aimed lights with the precision of navy gunners sighting hostile shores. On the ground perhaps two dozen people milled round the set, mostly men, along with a wardrobe woman, and a make-up girl.

  Gigi warned him to watch his step amid the cords and cables. ‘They’re not filming anything now. They’re just setting up the shot.’

  Quentin was puzzled. The scene did not look at all the way he had pictured the dingy, comfy, beery, smoky music hall from Some of These Days. Everything was bright. He leaned over to Gigi. ‘We must be in the wrong place. This isn’t a Brixton music hall from the thirties. This is—’

  ‘San Francisco the night before the 1906 earthquake. See that make-up girl. She’s the one I was telling you about. One of them. Morals of a—’

  ‘How can that be? The novel’s got nothing to do with San Francisco and the earthquake! Some of These Days is the story of an ageing singer in a Brixton music hall, about her life and—’

  ‘OK, so they took a few liberties. It’s a movie, baby, not a translation. They had to make a few little changes.’

  ‘But this is a kind of blasphemy! How could Frank have agreed to this?’

  ‘He didn’t! I already told you that. When they screwed with his story, he had a shit fit. But I ask you, who is going to give a good goddamn about a bricked music hall or an old whore who’s been around the block once too often?’

  ‘But that’s what made it tragic and beautiful!’

  ‘Well, in a Regent film there is no tragic and beautiful. A little misty moment, fine. But tragedy? No one goes to the pictures to cry their eyes out nowadays. They want to be amused.’

  Quentin turned back to the set. The wholesale ransacking of Some of These Days, the total corruption of the book that he beheld before him made him burn with indignation, outrage and loyalty, not simply for Francis Carson, but for the novel, any novel. Francis Carson’s very bowels must have roiled when he saw what they were doing to his story. Now he understood Claire’s remark that Frank had written her that philistines were gutting his book and turning him into the fishwife. Gigi’s image of the vast kitchen came to mind, the poor sod gutting the silvery fish. How could Carson bear to watch this? Even sleeping with Linda St John, the star, how could he endure this? ‘This is appalli
ng.’

  ‘Miss Fischer,’ said a prim-looking woman in severe clothing, clutching a clipboard to her narrow breast, ‘you are not supposed to be here.’ She spoke in a low tone so that her voice should not echo in the high vaults.

  ‘I’m supposed to be anywhere I want.’

  ‘Mr Vernon won’t like it. No visitors are allowed on set.’

  ‘I’m hardly a visitor. I was born on this lot.’

  ‘That is a legend you’d like me to believe. Now, where is your pass?’

  ‘This is Marjorie Deeds, Quentin. Marjorie, this is Quentin Castle. He’s—’

  ‘He could be Alan Ladd for all I care. You do not have permission. You’ll have to leave. Mr Vernon will insist that you leave.’

  ‘Fine. Let him take it up with Roy.’ Gigi turned and winked at Quentin as the woman walked away. ‘What a prig. Come with me. We’ll have a better view from over there.’ She took his hand and led him in an arc around the set itself. Several people regarded her grimly and a few muttered, Mr Vernon won’t like this. Gigi shrugged, or made rude kissing noises at them. She found a place for Quentin and herself in the shadows, looking at the saloon set from the side.

  ‘Hello, Brat. I heard you got dumped from Vassar. What brings you here?’ said a woman’s voice coming up behind them.

  Gigi jumped. ‘You startled me! You know I hate being called that.’

  ‘If that’s all you’ve got to hate, count yourself lucky, ducky.’ She was a voluptuous woman, full breasted, her silky robe cinched at her small waist. She wore a fantastic wig in a 1900 pompadour. Her face was a study in fierce contrasts: red mouth, green eyes, heavy black brows, pale white skin. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’

  ‘I don’t smoke. I play tennis. Remember I beat you last summer.’

  The woman turned to Quentin. ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘Sorry. I don’t smoke.’

  ‘This is Linda St John,’ said Gigi.

  ‘Run and get me a cigarette, will you, Gigi?’

  ‘Who was your slave last year?’

  ‘Please, Gigi.’ Linda spoke as though bored. ‘They’re in my dressing room.’